1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an ink cartridge detachably attached to a printing apparatus like an ink jet printer or an ink jet plotter. More specifically the invention pertains to a technique of processing information relating to the ink cartridge.
2. Description of the Related Art
The ink jet-type printing apparatus is arranged to cause the printer main body to calculate the remaining quantity of each ink in the ink cartridge based on the amount of ink ejected from the print head and to inform the user of a state of running out of the ink, in order to prevent the printing procedure from being interrupted by the out-of-ink.
One proposed ink cartridge has a storage element, in which various pieces of information relating to ink kept in the ink cartridge, for example, the type of ink and the quantity of ink, are stored. The ink cartridge has these pieces of information regarding ink, and the printer, to which the ink cartridge is attached, reads the stored information regarding ink and carries out the printing procedure suitable for the ink.
The ink cartridge is expendable and thereby required to have as low a manufacturing cost as possible. A storage unit having a large storage capacity can thus not be applied for the storage element of the ink cartridge. There is, however, a contradictory requirement of storing greater pieces of information relating to the ink cartridge into the storage element, in order to enable the user to obtain the detailed information relating to the ink cartridge.